The subject matter disclosed herein relates to an aircraft with an integrated single sensor and, more particularly, to a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft with an integrated single sensor.
A vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL) is an aircraft that can take off, land and hover in a vertical direction and that can conduct flight operations in a horizontal orientation. VTOL aircraft may be manned (i.e., piloted) or unmanned in the case of remotely piloted or autonomous aircraft and may be housed or stowed in places with limited deck and storage areas, such as naval ships.
Current VTOL aircraft may be provided with a rotor blown wing (RBW) configuration, which offers a unique blend of rotorcraft and fixed wing features and attributes. For example, VTOL aircraft with RBW configurations tend to more compact than similar aircraft with other configuration types. This compactness leads to certain challenges, however, such as those related to providing adequate sensor fields of view (FOV) and the need for the VTOL aircraft to be capable of flying vertically and horizontally. In particular, a conventional sensor mounting for these aircraft is normally located on the fuselage and thus has a limited FOV due to nacelles, vertical tails and propeller-rotors. Other sensor mountings have been proposed, such as ones with two mountings and added complexity.